What is the Upside Down? "Stranger Things 5" finally answers serieslong mystery Nick RomanoDecember 26, 2025 at 2:00 AM 0 Netflix The Upside Down in 'Stranger Things' season 5 Warning: This article contains spoilers from Stranger Things season 5, Volume 2. The origins of the Upside Down are entangled with the origins of Stranger Things itself. More than 10 years ago, when brotherly filmmaking duo Matt and Ross Duffer first created the universe of the soontobe Netflix megahit, their bosses at the streamer came to ask about the TV show's mythology.
- - What is the Upside Down? "Stranger Things 5" finally answers series-long mystery
Nick RomanoDecember 26, 2025 at 2:00 AM
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Netflix
The Upside Down in 'Stranger Things' season 5
Warning: This article contains spoilers from Stranger Things season 5, Volume 2.
The origins of the Upside Down are entangled with the origins of Stranger Things itself.
More than 10 years ago, when brotherly filmmaking duo Matt and Ross Duffer first created the universe of the soon-to-be Netflix mega-hit, their bosses at the streamer came to ask about the TV show's mythology. The Duffers were initially of the same mind: not knowing was more effective, they reasoned. In practice, they didn't want to know more than their characters.
"They sort of did force us," Matt now tells Entertainment Weekly of Netflix, "and I think it was a good thing, which was to write out a 20-page mythology document where we walk them through what the Upside Down is and the backstory. It's something that we've been planning to reveal for a long time."
According to Ross, they were originally going to give everyone these answers in season 2. "The initial pitch was the most bloated thing you've ever seen," he notes of that early treatment. "So we had to scale that back." But now the time has come, and the pair agree, "It was a huge relief to actually be able to show our hand."
The Upside Down, explained
Courtesy of Netflix
Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton, Joe Keery, and Gaten Matarazzo on 'Stranger Things' season 5
It's Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matarazzo) who uncovers the truth while foraging for information in the old journals of Dr. Brenner (Matthew Modine) in "Shock Jock," the premiere of Stranger Things season 5's Volume 2 drop. Though, he actually relays what he learned in the following episode, "Escape From Camazotz."
The Upside Down isn't an alternate dimension filled with creepy crawlies. Yes, there are demogorgons, -bats, and -dogs (oh my!), but these creatures didn't originate there. The Upside Down is a wormhole, the kind that Mr. Scott Clarke (Randy Havens) taught Erica Sinclair (Priah Ferguson) about in class earlier in season 5.
It's all held together through a swirling ball of exotic matter, though Ross admits, "I'm sure some scientists will poke plenty of holes in the way we are depicting this."
When Dr. Brenner first compelled a young Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) to enter the psychic void and make contact with a demogorgon all those years ago, that connection created the Upside Down as a bridge between our world and another, much darker dimension, now dubbed the Abyss.
It's from the Abyss that all these terrifying monsters that stalk Hawkins were born. It's where Henry Creel/Vecna/One (Jamie Campbell Bower) roamed alone for years, becoming more twisted and monstrous, and it's where he now keeps the kidnapped Hawkins children he needs to reshape the world.
Shawn Levy, a producer of the series and an episodic director, remembers how the Duffers gathered "a small group of people" together in a room to work out the mechanics of the Upside Down about a year ahead of season 5 filming. "I vividly remember being so grateful for the diagram that Matt and Ross drew because it helped me visualize a complicated concept," he says.
Courtesy of Netflix
The border of the Upside Down on 'Stranger Things 5'
It's the same diagram Matarazzo's Dustin draws for Team Hawkins to explain the concept, which Levy describes as a "trippy" moment. Outside of the massive wall that Eleven and Hopper (David Harbour) happen upon is an endless void of space. And if the Upside Down collapses, everything inside gets swept up into that nothingness.
"That rudimentary hourglass diagram...it set the table for everything else," Levy, who directed episode 6 and co-directed episode 7 with the Duffers, remarks. "Having that allows Steve [Joe Keery] to explain an additional concept using a slinky and a flashlight. As you'll see a little bit in episode 7 but very much so in episode 8, those visual concepts get manifested in shot design and production design more and more as we approach the end of the final season."
The cover of the Duffers' Stranger Things series bible reads "an epic of sci-fi horror," Ross says, which defined their approach. "Yes, obviously, this is science-fiction, but at the same time, it's grounded in some way in ideas of science," he continues. "There aren't ghosts here. We're playing around with real things because, to us, that made the horror that much scarier."
Much of this mythology stems from that bible, but they've added to it over the years. Matt points out, "We had rough ideas of a more sentient being all the way back in season 1," which later became Vecna. They also referred to this other dimension as Dimension X in the Stranger Things bible, "but that's a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reference," Ross acknowledges. Those characters didn't debut in comic books until 1984, one year after the setting of the TV show's first season, and Dimension X didn't hit the zeitgeist until even later.
"It felt more appropriate to stick to D&D references," Ross says, adding, "We came up with a name 'the Abyss' this year."
"I love the James Cameron film, The Abyss, so that was awesome," Matt adds.
Into the Abyss
Matthew Murphy; Evan Zimmerman
The opening sequence in the Abyss of 'Stranger Things: The First Shadow'
Stranger Things: The First Shadow, the stage play and prequel story that debuted prior to season 5, provides a little hint to the Abyss. The opening sequence goes back to the year 1943 when the U.S. military tried to turn a navy ship invisible but accidentally sent it to this dimension, denoted visually by the yellow-hued atmosphere.
For Bower, playing the figure at the center of this dark domain, the Abyss was confusing. "I remember having to have a conversation with Matt and Ross quite early on in the process, being like, 'I need you to tell me everything that's going on here and what this is,'" the actor remembers. "I don't know how I would describe it."
After a moment, he comes up with one descriptor: "For me, it feels like purgatory."
In season 4, viewers get another glimpse of the Abyss from the flashbacks that reveal Eleven opening a wormhole (the Upside Down) and sending Henry through to that unforgiving reality. "You see Jamie walking this desolate landscape," Ross says. "It's a different planet, right? So it needed to look aesthetically very different than the Upside Down."
Courtesy of Netflix
Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) on 'Stranger Things 5'
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The Duffers developed much of the dimension's details earlier this year, including its yellow-tinged color palette. "We liked that it had some sort of a rugged canyon feel to it," Ross continues, while noting how they "based it on some real locations in New Mexico" as a big starting point for the visual.
In contrast, the Upside Down is a twisted portrayal of Hawkins. The sky is constantly overcast, streaked with red lightning, while the setting is forever frozen in the year 1983, on the day Eleven first opened the wormhole.
"On initial viewing, it may seem less bleak than the Upside Down," Matt says, "but I promise you it is not a happy place."
The Stranger Things series finale arrives on New Year's Eve in both select theaters and on Netflix, starting at 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET.
on Entertainment Weekly
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Source: Entertainment
Published: December 26, 2025 at 08:45AM on Source: ANDY MAG
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